6
The gluck had him by the ankle and it was trying to drink him; it had penetrated his flesh with tiny tubes like cilia. Leo Bulero cried out—and then, abruptly, there stood Palmer Eldritch.
“You were wrong,” Eldritch said. “I did not find God in the Prox system. But I found something better.” With a stick he poked at the gluck; it reluctantly withdrew its cilia, and contracted into itself until at last it was no longer clinging to Leo; it dropped to the ground and traveled away, as Eldritch continued to prod it. “God,” Eldritch said, “promises eternal life. I can do better; I can deliver it.”
“Deliver it how?” Trembling and weak with relief, Leo dropped to the grassy soil, seated himself, and gasped for breath.
“Through the lichen which we’re marketing under the name Chew-Z,” Eldritch said. “It bears very little resemblance to your own product, Leo. Can-D is obsolete, because what does it do? Provides a few moments of escape, nothing but fantasy. Who wants it? Who needs that when they can get the genuine thing from me?” He added, “We’re there, now.”
“So I assumed. And if you imagine people are going to pay out skins for an experience like this—” Leo gestured at the gluck, which still lurked nearby, keeping an eye on both himself and Eldritch. “You’re not just out of your body; you’re out of your mind, too.”
“This is a special situation. To prove to you that this is authentic. Nothing excels physical pain and terror in that respect; the glucks showed you with absolute clarity that this is not a fantasy. They could actually have killed you. And if you died here that would be it. Not like Can-D, is it?” Eldritch was palpably enjoying the situation. “When I discovered the lichen in the Prox system I couldn’t believe it. I’ve lived a hundred years, Leo, already, using it in the Prox system under the direction of their medical people; I’ve taken it orally, intravenously, in suppository form—I’ve burned it and inhaled the fumes, made it into a water-soluble solution and boiled it, sniffed the vapors: I’ve experienced it every way possible and it hasn’t hurt me. The effect on Proxers is minor, nothing like what it does to us; to them it’s less of a stimulant than their very best grade tobacco. Want to hear more?”
“Not particularly.”
Eldritch seated himself nearby, rested his artificial arm on his bent knees, and idly swung his stick from side to side, scrutinizing the gluck, which had still not departed. “When we return to our former bodies—you notice the use of the word ‘former,’ a term you wouldn’t apply with Can-D, and for good reason—you’ll find that no time has passed. We could stay here fifty years and it’d be the same; we’d emerge back at the demesne on Luna and find everything unchanged, and anyone watching us would see no lapse of consciousness, as you have with Can-D, no trance, no stupor. Oh, maybe a flicker of the eyelids. A split second; I’m willing to concede that.”
“What determines our length of time here?” Leo asked.
“Our attitude. Not the quantity taken. We can return whenever we want to. So the amount of the drug need not be—”
“That’s not true. Because I’ve wanted out of here for some time, now.”
“But,” Eldritch said, “you didn’t construct this—establishment, here; I did and it’s mine. I created the glucks, this landscape—” He gestured with his stick. “Every damn thing you see, including your body.”
“My body?” Leo examined himself. It was his regular, familiar body, known to him intimately; it was his, not Eldritch’s.
“I willed you to emerge here exactly as you are in our universe,” Eldritch said. “You see, that’s the point that appealed to Hepburn-Gilbert, who of course is a Buddhist. You can reincarnate in any form you wish, or that’s wished for you, as in this situation.”
“So that’s why the UN bit,” Leo said. It explained a great deal.
“With Chew-Z one can pass from life to life, be a bug, a physics teacher, a hawk, a protozoon, a slime mold, a streetwalker in Paris in 1904, a—”
“Even,” Leo said, “a gluck. Which one of us is the gluck, there?”
“I told you; I made it out of a portion of myself. You could shape something. Go ahead—project a fraction of your essence; it’ll take material form on its own. What you supply is the logos. Remember that?”
“I remember,” Leo said. He concentrated, and presently there formed not far off an unwieldy mass of wires and bars and gridlike extensions.
“What the hell is that?” Eldritch demanded.
“A gluck trap.”
Eldritch put his head back and laughed. “Very good. But please don’t build a Palmer Eldritch trap; I still have things I want to say.” He and Leo watched the gluck suspiciously approach the trap, sniffing. It entered and the trap banged shut. The gluck was caught, and now the trap dispatched it; one quick sizzle, a small plume of smoke, and the gluck had vanished.
In the air before Leo a small section shimmered; out of it emerged a black book, which he accepted, thumbed through, then, satisfied, put down on his lap.
“What’s that?” Eldritch asked.
“A King James Bible. I thought it might help protect me.”
“Not here,” Eldritch said. “This is my domain.” He gestured at the bible and it vanished. “You could have your own, though, and fill it with bibles. As can everyone. As soon as our operations are underway. We’re going to have layouts, of course, but that comes later with our Terran activities. And anyhow that’s a formality, a ritual to ease the transition. Can-D and Chew-Z will be marketed on the same basis, in open competition; we’ll claim nothing for Chew-Z that you don’t claim for your product. We don’t want to scare people away; religion has become a touchy subject. It will only be after a few tries that they realize the two different aspects: the lack of a time lapse and the other, perhaps the more vital. That it isn’t fantasy, that they enter a genuine new universe.”
“Many persons feel that about Can-D,” Leo pointed out. “They hold it as an article of faith that they’re actually on Earth.”
“Fanatics,” Eldritch said with disgust. “Obviously it’s illusion because there is no Perky Pat and no Walt Essex and anyhow the structure of their fantasy environment is limited to the artifacts actually installed in their layout; they can’t operate the automatic dishwasher in the kitchen unless a min of one was installed in advance. And a person who doesn’t participate can watch and see that the two dolls don’t go anywhere; no one is in them. It can be demonstrated—”
“But you’re going to have trouble convincing those people,” Leo said. “They’ll stay loyal to Can-D. There’s no real dissatisfaction with Perky Pat; why should they give up—”
“I’ll tell you,” Eldritch said. “Because however wonderful being Perky Pat and Walt is for a while, eventually they’re forced to return to their hovels. Do you know how that feels, Leo? Try it sometime; wake up in a hovel on Ganymede after you’ve been freed for twenty, thirty minutes. It’s an experience you’ll never forget.”
“Hmm.”
“And there’s something else—and you know what it is, too. When the little period of escape is over and the colonist returns… he’s not fit to resume a normal, daily life. He’s demoralized. But if instead of Can-D he’s chewed—”
He broke off. Leo was not listening; he was involved in constructing another artifact in the air before him.
A short flight of stairs appeared, leading into a luminous hoop. The far end of the flight of stairs could not be seen.
“Where does that go?” Eldritch demanded, an irritated expression on his face.
“New York City,” Leo said. “It’ll take me back to P. P. Layouts.” He rose and walked to the flight of stairs. “I have a feeling, Eldritch, that something’s wrong, some aspect of this Chew-Z product. And we won’t discover what it is until too late.” He began climbing the stairs and then he remembered the girl, Monica; he wondered if she was all right, here in Palmer Eldritch’s world. “What about the child?” He stopped his climb. Below him, but seemingly far off, he could make out Eldritch, still seated with his stick on the grass. “The glucks didn’t get her, did they?”